"The Bethlem Royal Hospital is a hospital in London, United Kingdom for the treatment of mental illness, part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. It has moved three times from its original location, and is Europe's first and oldest institution to specialise in mental illnesses. It has been known by various names including St Mary Bethlehem, Bethlem Hospital, Bethlehem Hospital and, informally and most notoriously, Bedlam.
The hospital is closely associated with King's College London and, in partnership with the King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, is a major centre for psychiatric research. It is part of the King's Health Partners academic health science centre and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health.
Originally the hospital was near Bishopsgate just outside the walls of the City of London. It moved to Moorfields just outside the Moorgate in the 17th century, then to St George's Fields in Southwark in the 19th century, before moving to its current location at Monks Orchard in West Wickham, in the London Borough of Bromley in 1930.
The word "bedlam", meaning uproar and confusion, is derived from the hospital's prior nickname. Although the hospital became a modern psychiatric facility, historically it was representative of the worst excesses of asylums in the era of lunacy reform."
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